


We Are Not Meant To Be Alone

by ManicRavingsofaLunatic



Series: Immortal Husbands Collection [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bad guy OC - Freeform, Dictatorship, Fictional countries/politics, Interlude, Multi, Plans for Ethnic Cleansing (mentioned - not actioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25941373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManicRavingsofaLunatic/pseuds/ManicRavingsofaLunatic
Summary: Quynh took her first breath in five centuries, held it, savoured it deep within her chest as the warm sun dried the sea to salt crystals on her skin. She was free. Alive.AndromacheBad Guy Interlude between We Go Together and "The Sequel"
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko
Series: Immortal Husbands Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872301
Comments: 15
Kudos: 167





	We Are Not Meant To Be Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Again, not technically "the" sequel (I feel bad I am putting that at the beginning of every fic...) but this time we are moving the plot! You all had questions about Quynh right?

**SAN LORENZO - 1976**

The villa was on fire. Quite possibly everything was on fire, but it was the villa, his _h_ _ome_ that Damian was more concerned about. The heirlooms and trophies and priceless artwork burning and smouldering all around him as he choked on the acrid smoke. People were screaming in the distance, burning too, but Damian was watching the antique furniture of his grandfather's office char and shrivel - the legacy that was supposed to be his one day - and felt nothing but anger and rage.

His grandfather was dead, still sat in his chair like a king on his throne, one neat bullet hole in his forehead. 

They had been talking, the old man showing him maps of their country, their little island, telling Damian all about the people who would remain after the Cleansing. The perfect citizens. The ones that would follow, obey, work and worship as instructed. No odd colours. No foreign beliefs.

It was going to be _perfect.  
_

Then the window had cracked, his grandfather's head thrown back and brain matter sprayed across the wall. 

Damian had been frozen for quite a while (a weakness he would later curse himself for, but he had only been six years old at the time) hidden in the shadow of the room on the chair his grandfather had placed there specifically for him.

It had been daylight when his grandfather had been shot, and it was dark by the time Damian noticed the smoke and the heat from the fire. It was an accidental blaze, he would find out later, not part of the assassination that San Lorenzo wasn't even aware of yet, and it spread quickly throughout the villa. The fire would kill his parents, his younger brother and disfigure his sister to the point where death would have been a kindness. A kindness that he would bestow upon her thirteen years later when he had tracked down her adoption records.

The door to the office opened, a soldier scanning the room carefully. He wore no colours, just generic tactical gear, a scarf over his lower face to filter out the smoke. He held a gun in his hands, a rifle on his back and an ancient sword hung from a scabbard at his hip. His eyes widened when they caught on Damian, a curse in Italian muffled by the scarf.

Damian stared at him as the man's gaze flicked from his grandfather's corpse to the bullet hole in the window and back to Damian, something a lot like guilt in his eyes.

"Boy," he said quietly, switching to the local Spanish as he lowered his gun. "Are you hurt? We must get you out of here."

Damian coughed on the smoke and considered the soldier, before a shout from one of his grandfather's men had him huffing in exasperation - _Protect the president!_

A little late for that. 

The soldier braced against the door frame, gun raised and aimed down the corridor where the thunder of booted feet was coming from. Damian considered warning the approaching men, but with one glance at his grandfather's corpse (that would already be cold if not for the fire) decided that death was a fitting punishment for their incompetence. The soldier killed them all efficiently, and then turned back to Damian, extending a hand. "Come boy, we must go."

Damian nodded and stood, but ignored the soldier's hand. He pulled up the collar of his shirt to mimic the soldier's makeshift filter and then followed behind him. The soldier led them down and towards the servants' quarters where the fire was less intense (less to burn, nothing of value). They made it to the rear court yard, the heat of the fire still close but the back wall of the villa not far, when there came a _crack,_ the soldier grunting in pain and shoving Damian sideways behind a pillar.

The left leg of the soldier's pants was wet with blood as he dropped to one knee beside Damian, smearing crimson across the scabbard. As the soldier searched for the shooter, Damian found himself intrigued by the hilt of the sword as it reflected the light of the burning villa. It was clearly old, very old, but well cared for and such a contrast to the rest of the modern gear the soldier sported. Damian reached out to touch just as something hit the stone floor with a soft _chink._

Curious, Damian picked it up, a warped bullet staining his sooty palm red.

The soldier took out the shooter, then hoisted Damian by his arm and urged him moving again, not even limping from the bullet wound in his leg.

The soldier got him to safety, leaving him with a paramedic and an apology as the villa collapsed to rubble behind them. 

Damian was swept up in the system following that night, only learning later that not only had his grandfather's life been taken but his dreams too. His perfect country was overtaken by a political rival, spouting peace and introducing democracy and San Lorenzo became worthless to Damian. His home, his country, his inheritance reduced to just another nation to be overrun by the weak. It should have all _burned._

Over the years that followed, Damian became obsessed with what happened that day. He learned that a small team had been hired to stop his grandfather's Cleansing, three men and a woman appearing one day and disappearing the next, leaving blood and rubble in their wake. He realised that the assassination had been carried out by a sniper and recognised the rifle on the soldier's back. An ancient sword and a spent bullet would haunt him until he started seeing the soldier everywhere - in history books. In artwork. In old war footage.

When he was 18 years old, his grandfather's money, secreted away in Cayman accounts, paid his way through Oxford and a history degree. He became adept at digging into the past until soon an entire room in his London flat was filled with evidence of the impossible.

 _Sebastien le Livre died 1812 - Andromache the Scythian thousands of years old - Quynh thrown to the sea for witchcraft - Yusuf Al-Kaysani felled in the siege of Jerusalem - Nicolo de Genoa,_ The soldier

 _Immortals._

It was impossible, crazy, and Damian was very tired of being accused of insanity. He collected his evidence silently, the flat filled to bursting until it spilled into his first home and on and on over the decades until the entire west wing of his manor house in the Cotswolds became a museum in its own right. His wife thought him eccentric, his children a little kooky, but he didn't care (not about them, not about what they thought of him)

And then in 2012 a CIA agent called Copley hired a team of mercenaries, and Damian found a kindred truth seeker.

They met only briefly, crossing paths when checking the same sources (Copley never dug deep enough - 100, 150 years? Nothing compared to Damian's research). They ended up in London at the same time, Copley's wife dying and sending the coward crawling to that child Merrick who only saw the immortals as toys to play with. 

Damian created a new identity, grifted his way into a job with one of Merrick's competitors so he could engage in a little corporate espionage. 

Damian met the soldier again (he was dead at the time - his lung or heart or whatever had been removed and jarred. The other one, Yusuf, Joe, was re-growing a hand) and he had _itched_ to draw blood himself. Forty-four years he had waited to meet his grandfather's murderer, to find the team that had taken everything from him, his promised perfection...

And then Merrick lost them. 

Of course he did, pathetic child playing villain. Only a monologue away from twirling his damn moustache. 

Damian walked out of Merrick's building with copies of Dr Kozak's research, a jarred organ and a plan. The immortals were on edge now, defensive and protected by a Spook. He couldn't just hunt them down, and even if he could what would be the point? He couldn't kill them, couldn't even really hurt them. What he needed was a weapon that would cut so much deeper than a bullet or a blade.

IYS didn't take much convincing when presented with the evidence; their research team losing their shit when they got to play with the organ that kept healing every time they stabbed it with a scalpel, demanding more. Damian already knew where the lost one was, Quynh, or at least an area to search. A suggestion here, a bribe there and soon he had a fully funded expedition under his command.

Three weeks later they dragged a metal coffin from the sea

And Damian had himself his very own immortal.

* * *

**ENGLAND - 2020**

Quynh was dead when they opened her coffin; the rapid ascent from the depths killing her one more time.

She had been lifted free and laid out on the deck of a ship, the white gown that she had been imprisoned in rotten to scraps and leaving her almost completely exposed. She took her first breath in five centuries, held it, savoured it deep within her chest as the rising sun dried the sea to salt crystals on her skin. 

She was free. Alive.

She was blinded by the light after so long in darkness, skin tingling with too much warmth after nothing but cold, her mind a fractured mess. A hazy figure leaned over her, shielding her from the sun.

_Andromache._

Quynh woke again some time later (days, weeks, months, she had no concept) and found herself in a small dark room. She couldn't tell how big the space was, but it felt tight, enclosing and she couldn't see. She couldn't _move--_

She forgot that breathing was necessary and slipped away.

The next time she woke there was a light.

Dull, like the shimmering fish she had seen in the water, but still bright enough to have her squinting. The glow cast enough light for her to see that the room was bigger than her coffin, and there was air - not enough, never enough - but she could breathe. 

She was trapped.

Panic took her again.

"--the sun rose over the misty mountains..." a voice was speaking quietly. _A voice_. She hadn't heard anyone speak in so long it took her a while to translate the sound. They were speaking in Vietnamese, or at least a butchered version of it that barely resembled her mother tongue, but she could slowly understand their meaning. The light was still there, revealing a figure, a man maybe, seated and reading from a book. 

Quynh let the cadence of sounds wash over her, enjoying the novelty of it. And then she tried to move and realised she couldn't. 

She was tied down. Trapped. Imprisoned.

She didn't think she died that time, the panic causing her to pass out rather than asphyxiate. The voice was still going, reading rhythmically and soothingly.

Her bindings had been loosened. She could lift her arms and legs though they were still tethered to the pallet she was laid upon. She tested the reach and marvelled at just how much she could move.

The man stopped reading.

"Hello Quynh," he said genially. "My name is Damian."

"Andromache," Quynh croaked in reply, struggling to remember how to form the syllables and stunned when sound escaped her lips that she could hear. She had been silently screaming for so, so long.

"I'm sorry, my dear," the man, Damian, shook his head sadly. He reached out to lay a hand on her wrist, his fingers rough and hot against her skin. "Andromache is not here."

Quynh broke his wrist.

The light was gone when she next awoke, she was strapped down tightly, and when she screamed she heard nothing but silence. 

Damian was reading again. The light was a little brighter, painfully so until her eyes could adjust. She could see the walls now, further away than she thought but still too close. There was a door. Her pallet was soft, an actual mattress rather than straw and the bindings around her body were made of soft fabric. She had been allowed to move slightly again, though she noted that Damian's chair was a little further away.

"Andromache," she asked again.

Damian frowned sadly. "She has been kept away from you, my dear."

"Andromache?"

Damian patted her shoulder using the arm that she broke. The touch was gentle and soft and exposed the injury wrapped in a strange brace. Was the man so stupid? Or did he... trust her?

"Andromache," Quynh whispered. She was so tired, and Damian's voice was soothing as he continued to read.

They got through several books, the room gradually getting lighter each time she opened her eyes, her chains getting longer. They had been using tubes of some kind to keep her nourished, and another to simulate a chamber pot, but after a while they removed them. She choked on her first drink of water, expecting the bitter taste of salt and stunned by the refreshing coolness instead. Her first meal of broth set her tongue alight with flavours long forgotten.

Damian was there when she took her first steps, smiling encouragingly at her as she stumbled around like a new born foal. 

She attacked a man that came too close to her - snapping his neck. She woke again trapped in darkness and silence until Damian came back to her with the light and his warm voice. Gentle touches - a pat to her arm, a soft caress to her cheek, his fingers lightly brushing her hair. 

A woman came and tried to cut Quynh's hair. Quynh stabbed her in the chest with her own scissors. When Damian came back after the darkness, he assured her that the woman survived. Quynh didn't know if she was happy about that.

"How would you like to go for a walk?" Damian asked, the door open behind him.

He took Quynh's arm like a gentleman, slowing his pace to her clumsy amble and taking her weight without a comment. He led her down the corridor, revealing a building that was completely alien to her. There was so much white it hurt her still sensitive eyes, but she had to keep looking. There was glass, shiny walls of it. There was a strange hum in the air, glowing orbs hanging from ceiling, distant echoing sounds.

They started taking walks daily, getting a little bit further every time as Damian chatted away about so many new things. Electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, guns, planes, medicines, science...

He started speaking in English, explaining that they were still in England and as such it was best to speak the language to be understood. Quynh knew an old, old version of it that they began to modernise. She had learnt so many languages over thousands of years, it didn't take her long to grasp the sounds, even if the grammar was as confusing as the concept of a metal box that could fly.

She would often ask of Andromache, wondering where she could possibly be, and Damian would look so forlorn that Quynh would fear that she was dead. But no, Damian assured her that Andromache was okay, but she was being kept away. When Quynh was ask who by, Damian would look so angry, the expression strange on his old face.

One day, after Quynh had gone a whole week without trying to kill anyone, Damian led her somewhere different on their walk. He took her up a staircase and into an office, bowing with flourish.

Boards had been set up, five of them side by side and spanning the large space. There were pictures _(photographs,_ images captured by a _machine)_ pinned among scrawled notes and pages torn from books. Coloured strings and paper sprawling across them in a complicated web. Quynh's eyes caught on a painting. "Andromache!"

She moves between the boards, soaking in every image and word excitedly. "Nicolo! Yusuf! And, that must be Sebastien--"

"They call him Booker," Damian pointed out.

Quynh smiled, "Of course, Yusuf would have dubbed him such because of his name. He always gave us names."

She took it all in, so happy to see their faces that she almost missed the years that labelled each photo. Where they were, when they were - so far away, so many wars and battles and-- "They are not looking for me."

Damian shook his head.

"Why? Why do they not look for me?" 

"They could not find you, you were too deep for them to reach, my dear," Damian explained sadly. He gestured towards the first board, pointing at shipping manifests and diary extracts from the time that Quynh was cast in to the Channel. "They searched for a long time but alas, they could not search forever."

"But--" Quynh stammered. "My Andromache would not abandon me, she would never--"

Damian jabbed harshly at a picture of Yusuf. "Her choice was taken from her. They were caught in a storm while scouring the sea and Nicolo was thrown overboard. Yusuf decided that he would no longer risk his lover and left Andromache alone in her search for you."

"We are not meant to be alone," Quynh muttered, running her fingers gently across the image of Andromache. "It breaks something in us, to be alone."

Damian nodded. "Indeed, my dear. And Andromache was quite broken. She kept trying to find you for another decade, but was soon called back to join Nicolo and Yusuf. Forced to leave you behind."

"They stole her from me." Something sharp and dark cracked inside her. "They always had each other. They never had to be alone, never knew that grief or pain and _they stole her from me."_

Damian opened his arms, and Quynh couldn't help but fall into them sobbing against his chest as the depth of her brothers' betrayal tore into her soul. "Andromache, my Andromache," Quynh choked desperately. "How could they take you from me? How could they... Yusuf, Nicolo... How could you..."

"Oh, my dear Quynh, they have taken what was most precious to you as they did to me as well," Damian whispered into her hair. "I understand your pain, your rage, oh how it _burns"_

Quynh swallowed her tears, a growl sounding deep in her throat. "I want to _hurt_ them. Make them feel what loneliness and pain and grief is. I want them to _suffer_ as they have made my Andromache for centuries."

Damian smiled. "My dear Quynh, I believe I can help you with that."

* * *

**THREE MONTHS LATER**

"Tell me again."  
Damian grinned broadly, taking a quick sip of his wine. "Two shots to the chest, Nicolo didn't see it coming. He fell to his knees, choking on his own blood as Booker dragged him away. It took six minutes for him to die, and every moment was agony."

Quynh laughed, beautiful if not a touch demented, but Damian could excuse that given her previous residence in a metal coffin on the seabed. "When you told me you had done it, I told Yusuf, made sure that he knew _exactly_ who had taken Nicolo from him. He died better then than when I had slashed his throat."

Rage had not been a difficult fire to stoke in a mind already so fragile, and directing it had been ever easier. A bad word could not be said against Andromache, Damian had learned that early on, but when he presented Yusuf and Nicolo as an alternative target Quynh had been more than willing to do whatever it took to hurt them as badly as she was. 

IYS wanted research into immortality or rapid regeneration or whatever revolutionary medical marvel they wanted to bottle as snake oil. The scientists had treated Quynh like a queen as they had experimented with her, her own skewed sense of physical pain and torture allowing her to chat amiably with the eggheads as they tore literal strips from her. Damian had assured her that the research would lead to a way to harm an immortal permanently, maybe even kill one, and she submitted to every test willingly.

Damian had paid a few of the researchers an extra salary to convince them that making a weapon was in their better interest, and soon all sorts of materials were being tested against Quynh's skin. And then finally, one left a scar.

Quynh had been ecstatic, even now she constantly ran her fingers over the raised skin on her arm, admiring the scar. _The pain we suffer has never shown on our skin before_ , she had exclaimed.

Soon they had bullets and the means to shoot them, all they had needed was a trap.

It was Quynh who chose Booker. She had seen him in her dreams and felt his sadness and loneliness. Yusuf and Nicolo had cast him aside as well, making Andromache sacrifice another so that she would stay with them. Either Booker would lead Quynh to Andromache, or Booker would lead Andromache to Quynh.

Either way, Damian was prepared. He hired mercenaries, essentially an army of men that asked no questions and wouldn't be missed after the slaughter. The stage was set at IYS (the immortals so scared of large pharma after Merrick that they didn't think to look closer) and everyone played their part. Quynh reunited with Andromache and got to work out a little of her rage. Damian got to look through a sniper scope and kill the man who destroyed his life.

IYS was absolutely livid and was trying to raise criminal charges against him, but there wasn't much they could do when Damian had evidence of them performing human experimentation. They had settled for a mutual split, and Damian had won Quynh in the divorce.

"He's still alive," Damian sighed, pouring them both another glass of wine. "Nicolo. They removed the bullets and the bastard came back."

"But he is still suffering, no?" Quynh replied grinning. "He will never heal completely and so he drowns again and again as Yusuf is forced to watch for all eternity. Fitting, I think."

Damian grimaced. "I want him dead. For what he did to my grandfather, my family and my country. I want him _dead."_

Quynh tilted her head in consideration. "We immortals are rather difficult to kill."

Damian glanced behind them at the dining room table. Across the surface various weapons and ammunitions were laid out, from arrowheads for Quynh's bow to tactical knifes to machine guns rounds. All made from an element that could make an immortal bleed forever.

"If we were to kill Nicolo and Yusuf," Damian pondered, "Booker and the new one too, that would make Andromache free. She would come back to you."

Quynh's eyes lit up, one of the knives held in her skilled hands. "And she is mortal now. I could live my life with her, and when her time comes I would know the means to follow her."

"We shall end this curse for you all."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and for the response to my stories so far. Hopefully this was an interesting read (despite the lack of hurt!Nicky... next time, I promise) 
> 
> Prompts/Ideas/Theories always welcome!


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